Thanksgiving

It's 5:00 AM and I've got nervous energy. I think it's 'cause I volunteered Astrid and I to make the stuffing for the holiday feast, which will commence in about 11 hours. I'm sure it will turn out okay, but as a friend called it yesterday, "You're making THE side dish!" The pressure is on!

Before looking at any recipes, I decided that these ingredients would be essential, and I went and bought them in mass quantities:

whole chestnuts
celery
onions and shallots
mushrooms
fresh parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme (which I failed to write in that order on the grocery list.)
veggie broth

Then, on scoping a few recipes for making stuffing from scratch, we went and got three huge loaves of sourdough which we'll toast in the oven to begin the process. We'll roast the chestnuts, sautée the veggies, combine everything, then bake the stuffing. It seems pretty straightforward and easy.

Another friend yesterday assured me that only three things could possibly go wrong:

1. The stuffing is too bland.
2. The stuffing is too dry.
3. The stuffing is too soggy.

The first two will be remedied automatically by dousing the stuff in gravy, so really aren't problems at all. The third means we're shit outta luck. I think I can handle this.

Another anxiety about the day ahead, though this is not what's keeping me up, is the probability that I will eat way too much food. I've been doing pretty well lately with "portion control," as the diet gurus might say, but Thanksgiving is a notorious rule-breaking event, and the entirety of the meal, aside from the turkey, is carbs, glorious carbs. I'm really glad I never went in for the Atkins diet. Not to malign it, because there are some sound scientific grounds for why it works, but I just don't think substantially reducing carbs and sugar over my lifetime is a sustainable strategy for me. I'm not much for sugar, anyway (it's really the easiest thing for me to control) but definitely decreasing highly refined carbs and increasing complex carbs like whole grains and veggies is something I've been focused on and continue to tackle. Anyway, today won't be a whole grain kinda day, but still, eating til I'm done and not keeling over from a gorged gut will be my modest health-conscious goal. That, and Astrid and I are planning to start the day, even before preparing the stuffing, by going to the gym and doing some cardio. She checked, and 24-hour is indeed open for business today. It'll be really interesting to see how many other people will be at the gym on a major eating-oriented holiday.

Gonna try to go back to bed now.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.